Tag: Print & Play

Magnagothica: Maleghast Print & Play – Condition Tokens

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Yesterday I posted of my progress of converting the combat units of Maleghast into poker chips. Today I am going to elaborate on how I handled condition tokens such as strength, weakness, vulnerability and so on.

After I prepared the unit chips, I wasn’t sure how to handle conditions. Initially I planned to use a dice to track them per unit, but after bringing the game on the table, I quickly realized this is an untenable solution. The game just has too many status effects and things to keep track of, per unit

First game played using dice and whatever tokens I had available, for conditions and status effects

Unless you have a hundred colored dice of different colors and designs, it becomes impossible to keep track of everything, and it’s very easy to jostle dice and lose track of things. Not to mention that they end up covering the unit itself and its printed stats, so you end up having to lift the tokens to see.

Instead I decided to design custom poker chips which I would place below the unit chip, just before their hit points. Using different color chips per condition, should make it easy to track what affects each unit, without even having to lift the unit chip to inspect them after a while. The original plan was to buy the same sort of chips I used for the units, just in different colors, but after realizing the breadth and quantity of chips that would be required, I quickly discarded that plan as there wouldn’t be enough variation for color coding and it would require too much money.

Instead I decided to switch to my 3D printer to print my own condition chips. They wouldn’t have the same weight as the units, but that’s a trivial issue which in practice doesn’t bother anyone. However the benefits would be massive. Not only can I design chips in any color combination I want, but I can also etch specific symbols on them, and the name of the condition itself, ensuring that it’s trivial to keep track of what’s going on, on the board, at minimum hassle.

As I don’t own a multi-color printer, I decided to find poker chips designs that works with a monofilament printer. This is the only 3D-printed poker chips model I could find that doesn’t rely on an AMS, and it prints out very well.

Initially I was printing these on the basic texture plate of the printer, but it was very fault-prone as the models kept disconnecting from the plate and ruining the whole batch. I then switched to putting wide brims on everything to ensure adhesion and this worked very well, but the downside is that afterwards I had a significant amount of fine effort to do on the chip “pips” to remove the extra filament. I would have to literally sit there for half an hour, cutting away the brims from each pip with a cutter.

I decided to switch to a cool plate instead and while I was afraid it would not work well due to how notoriously hard it is to remove flat models from these plates after printing, my concerns turned out to be unfounded as the chips easily popped out with some bending, and their pips can quickly be removed with some light tapping from the side. The cool plate also helps the text engrave better on the bottom.

For the customization, I used OpenSCAD as it’s Linux native and it works programmatically, which means I could use an LLM to help me quickly cook up a script to engrave the art and letters I need. I provide my script here in case it can be useful to others.

// ==========================================================
// USER SETTINGS 
// ==========================================================
use_svg_icon      = true;       // True: Top is SVG | False: Top is Text
emoji_svg_file    = "MAGNAGOTHICA/3D tokens/health.svg";

engraving_text    = "Health"; // The text is placed on the bottom of the chip
top_text_y_position = 19; // Change this to 22 if you use engraving_text2
engraving_text2    = ""; // More text for the bottom of the chip. Used when the label is too long.
top_size          = 1;          // Font size OR SVG scale factor for top side
bottom_text_size  = 5;        // Font size for bottom text. 5 for 4-5 letters, reduced progressively for longer words
font_style        = "Liberation Sans:style=Bold";

// ==========================================================
// MODEL GENERATION
// ==========================================================
difference() {
    // 1. Import original STL file
    import("obj_1_poker chip p2_1.stl");

    // 2. Top Side Engraving (Can toggle between SVG or Text)
        translate([19.5, 19.0, 2.5]) { 
            linear_extrude(height = 1.1) {
                if (use_svg_icon) {
                    // The offset() function cleans up self-intersections in the SVG path
                    offset(delta = 0.001) {
                        scale([top_size / 10, top_size / 10, 1]) 
                            import(emoji_svg_file, center = true);
                    }
                } else {
                    text(engraving_text, font = font_style, size = top_size, halign = "center", valign = "center");
                }
            }
        }

    // 3. Bottom Side Engraving (Always Text, Mirrored)
    translate([19.5, top_text_y_position, -0.5]) { 
        linear_extrude(height = 1.2) {
            mirror([1, 0, 0]) { 
                text(engraving_text, font = font_style, size = bottom_text_size, halign = "center", valign = "center");
            }
        }
    }
    translate([19.5, 16, -0.5]) { 
        linear_extrude(height = 1.2) {
            mirror([1, 0, 0]) { 
                text(engraving_text2, font = font_style, size = bottom_text_size, halign = "center", valign = "center");
            }
        }
    }
}Code language: PHP (php)

For the chip icons, I used the ole-reliable https://game-icons.net/ and found some appropriate icons for each condition and downloaded their SVGs to feed to OpenSCAD. Some of them faulted when OpenSCAD tried to render them to I added an offset workaround in my code which seems to fix them.

These chips take a surprising amount of printing time, particularly the pips. A full set of 15 tokens and their corresponding 90 pips take a full 6 hours of print time! So it was a a whole week of work before I had enough to cover everything. As I’m a bit perfectionist I not only want chips for the basic conditions and the faction conditions, but I also want custom chips for each special condition that some units and SOUL abilities would inflict. If one wants to save time, theoretically one can get away by just printing the basic conditions, then something like 4-5 colors of “generic conditions” which they would re-use each game based on their factions abilities. I.e. a token would be Plague in one game, but Berserk in another. But I’m a bit perfectionist with my boardgames, so I wanted unique color combinations and icons.

That of course means, a whole lot of chips, which quickly overwhelmed my table. I urgently needed a storage and organization solution. 3D printer once again to the rescue! Fortunately there’s no shortage poker chip storage solutions online. I just needed something that can handle the sheer amount of variety in my chips while still making it easy to use them during the game.

So I landed on this poker chip holder model which provides 10 unique spaces for chips which allows me plenty of space to organize and has the added benefit of being stackable and providing a convenient space for unit cards and the larger tyrant units. Unfortunately even after printing 3 of these, they were still not enough to handle everything, so now I am also printing this model to store things like hit points on the side, or maybe a way to transport just a single faction and their unique tokens only.

I’ve already played a game using these chips and it was a massive improvement over the dice. It was a breeze to keep track of everything and it actually helped a lot with the speed of the playthrough.

Next post I’m going to elaborate on the solution I came up for the unit cards

Magnagothica: Maleghast Print & Play – Unit Chips

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In the past month I’ve been trying to get Maleghast on the tabletop. The game was designed for the Virtual Tabletop but I don’t particularly like playing boardgames online as for me the social aspect is an implicit draw of the genre. So my plan was to translate the game components in a way to play them on the tabletop in a easy manner.

Initially I was planning to simply create 3D-printable miniatures for each unit in the game as I’ve done for Last Light but then the inspiration struck me after playing Chip Theory games like Cloudspire; to convert the miniatures into poker chips instead.

I went with chips because it allows me to display unit information for the opponent directly on the table, rather than having to remember everything or refer to the unit cards all the time. For this purpose, I used G.I.M.P. to add the basic unit information directly on each unit image. Now it becomes very easy when you’re deciding what to target to easily view all most relevant information such as the defense of the unit (which is the target number you want to hit with your attack)

As a sidebonus to that, the other side of each unit has a corpse image, so when a unit dies, all I have to do is flip it upside down, and it becomes a corpse on the battlefield. And if I need more corpses, I can use some of the unused unit chips.

For the poker chip creation, I used the process described here. For reference, these are the supplies I bought from German Amazon given that this guide was built for the USA market.

  • Poker Chips: These chips are very affordable and have satisfying weight. You need to remove their internal label to allow proper adhesion of the unit labels, but that’s easily done with an x-acto knife.
  • Hole Puncher: The poker chips have a 2.9cm diameter internal space so this one works best, but I’ve found you’re better off printing the units at 2.8cm to avoid cutting off some edge art.
  • Tweezers: To pick up unit labels without getting fingers sticky.
  • Glue Spray: This is the one suggested by the original guide. Loos like it works well enough as I can variate the spray strength as as to not send the card pieces flying.

However through trial and error I’ve discovered that it’s actually easier to spray the poker chip directly with the minimum amount of glue, and then press the unit art onto it. Spraying the unit paper makes things way messier. What I do I spray very very lightly on the chip, offset towards one side of the radius. Then I place the cutout unit art onto it, starting from the side I placed the glue, then gradually “tipping” it over, so that as it lays flat, it pushes the glue towards the rest of the area. This allows better coverage, without having the glue squish over the rim. Even then, it’s very easy to put too much glue on the chip, which still results in residue on the raised chip sides. I’ve tried cleaning that residue with paper and alcohol, but unfortunately it still remains sticky, which results in the chips sticking together when stuck and feeling sticky on the fingers.

To combat this, I got me this residue remover which is very good at getting rid of this glue. If I get some spillage, I immediately wipe it away with a rag infused with it, and there’s no residue left and in my experiments it’s not wiping the art either like alcohol does.

After I finished all the units, it occurred to me that I could have printed my own poker chips with the 3D printer, which should have allowed me a smaller “raised” radius on the chip, and therefore more space for art, but I already did all the work. And plus, the purchased chips have a more satisfying weight as well.

For the unit art printing, I created a custom python script with the help of an LLM, which takes all the images in a directory, resizes them and places them in A4 PDFs, which I can then send to my printer. 

import os
from fpdf import FPDF
from PIL import Image
# Create A4 page (210mm x 297mm)
pdf = FPDF(orientation="P", unit="mm", format="A4")
pdf.set_margin(0) # Remove default margins to prevent shifting
pdf.add_page()
# Hard coordinates in millimeters
X_START, Y_START = 15, 15  # Outer margins
x, y = X_START, Y_START
IMG_SIZE = 29
GAP = 0
PAGE_WIDTH = 210
PAGE_HEIGHT = 297
DIR = "all_units"
# Filter and sort your images
files = sorted([f for f in os.listdir(DIR) if f.lower().endswith(('.png', '.jpg', '.jpeg'))])
for file in files:
    img_path = f"{DIR}/{file}"
    # Open the image to check its pixel dimensions and aspect ratio
    with Image.open(img_path) as img:
        p_width, p_height = img.size
    # Calculate dimensions while maintaining aspect ratio within the IMG_SIZE box
    if p_width >= p_height:
        # Landscape or Square: Width is the limiting factor
        w_mm = IMG_SIZE
        h_mm = (p_height / p_width) * IMG_SIZE
    else:
        # Portrait: Height is the limiting factor
        h_mm = IMG_SIZE
        w_mm = (p_width / p_height) * IMG_SIZE
    # Check if the next image fits horizontally, if not wrap to next row
    if x + w_mm > PAGE_WIDTH - X_START:
        x = X_START
        y += IMG_SIZE + GAP  # Moves down by the maximum box height + gap
    # Check if the next row fits vertically, if not create a new A4 page
    if y + h_mm > PAGE_HEIGHT - Y_START:
        pdf.add_page()
        x, y = X_START, Y_START
    # Place image with its calculated proportional width and height
    pdf.image(img_path, x=x, y=y, w=w_mm, h=h_mm)
    # Move cursor to the next column based on the bounding box size to keep a uniform grid
    x += IMG_SIZE + GAP

pdf.output(f"{DIR}_perfect_{IMG_SIZE}mm_grid.pdf")
print(f"Done! '{DIR}_perfect_{IMG_SIZE}mm_grid.pdf' generated with aspect-ratio preserved images.")Code language: PHP (php)

Then it’s just a matter of cutting them out with the hole puncher

Initially I had the tyrants as a poker chip as well, but this was clearly never going to work as they’re meant to take 4 times the space as a 2v2 unit. So I instead converted them into square images which I can print on a chipboard as per this guide. All you need are

  • Straight Ruler
  • Utility knife
  • Paper Glue (I prefer this over spray glue, but that can work as well)
  • Carboard

I decided to print the max amount of units for each faction, so that each player also has the capacity to craft the warband they want. That means 3xScions, 3x Thralls (i.e. 6 chips), 1x Tyrant&Necro and 2xEverything else. I stayed with only 3x thralls instead of 5x, as it’s unlikely someone want to do that except for the memes, and it saves me the extra work and storage for the extra ~30 unit chips this would need. I also only printed 1x of each Necromancer, not really expecting to play mirror matches a lot.

With this approach, I now have a complete print of all Maleghast which are compact and can easily be stored due to the chip stack-ability. Also instead of expecting each player to have their own copies, I can simply provide everything and even carry it with me.

In the next guides I’m going to elaborate on the the 3D-printed poker chips I modified to serve as condition tokens, the 3D-printed terrain I designed for walls and elevation, and the printed terrain I designed for hazards, ladders and adverse terrain, so keep an eye for future blogposts on this.

I’ve already managed to bring the game to the table with all these components and I’m quite happy with both the flow and the time it takes to play. I’m leaving you with a photo of the last game I’ve managed to bring to the table

Abhorrers VS Igorri